


Waiting, Wasting, Wishing

by cryptaniac



Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: Angst, Canonical Character Death, Character Death, Episode Related, Historical, M/M, Pre-Slash, Temporary Character Death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-27
Updated: 2012-12-27
Packaged: 2017-11-22 13:59:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,138
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/610573
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cryptaniac/pseuds/cryptaniac
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After Arthur is gone Merlin waits and eventually he even ages, but what's the point? || This was written for this <a href="http://gigaku.tumblr.com/post/38776927911/fic-where-after-the-events-of-the-series-finale">prompt</a> by <a href="http://gigaku.tumblr.com/">gigaku</a>.</p><p>*Thanks to my lovely beta, <a href="http://fregg.tumblr.com/">fregg</a>!</p>
            </blockquote>





	Waiting, Wasting, Wishing

Gwen smiled at him and the skin around her eyes crinkled just that tiny bit more than he remembered. That’s when he first noticed that something was wrong. Camelot and its people had changed but it had done so for years now. The day he said goodbye to Arthur for the last time had been like a turning-point for the whole kingdom. For better or for worse he didn’t know. Maybe it didn’t even matter in the end, maybe Arthur’s part had been over anyway. They had fulfilled their destiny.

Merlin still felt numb when he recalled those last few moments and the feeling of Arthur’s gloved hands in his hair. During the first few weeks he had been convinced that the overpowering feeling of losing the only goal in his life, his essence, would never go away. At some days he had even wished it wouldn’t, it had felt like finally saying goodbye. He just hadn’t been ready for that. He still wasn’t. Time doesn’t care for the naïve wishes of a lost soul though. The pain grew numb and on the day when he decided to leave Camelot for a while, he could almost convince himself that life would go on as always.

In the years that followed, he visited Camelot, first on a regular basis but as he grew older and older his visits grew fewer. He watched Gaius fall asleep peacefully on a beautiful summer day so much unlike the one when Arthur was fighting for his life for the final time. He saw Gwen gain her spirits back and taking up a new husband who gave her two beautiful sons. He still didn’t look much older than a mere 30 when he held her hand and told her that he would always love her and miss her, before she closed her eyes forever.

Merlin watched a lot of his friends just leave like that, in peace and almost glad that everything was over and done with. Nobody ever asked him why he didn’t seem to age. All he got were stolen glances and badly hidden sympathy or even worse, pity. But still he moved on. He moved on and even after the last person he had called friend during his time as a young man had passed away, he didn’t give in. 

He just couldn’t. Arthur had asked him not to change and Merlin had made a promise to serve him forever. No questions asked.

As the years turned into decades and the decades grew into centuries however, this promise was harder and harder to keep. Camelot and the United Kingdoms flourished under the reign of the Pendragon family but even their time passed. They made room for new royal families and new problems as well as new peace and war.

He hadn’t been able to do anything, when William the Conqueror invaded Britain and became king of this beautiful land; of Arthur’s beautiful kingdom. There had been no destiny to fulfill, no prophecy to avert, no friend to safe, so he just watched. Merlin watched when the druids started to disappear and the people started to grow ignorant of the magic the soil of this country possessed. He watched as king followed king and war succeeded war and watched how truth turned into myth until he himself was nothing but legend. But what was the purpose of the greatest wizard who has ever lived when there was no one who deserved his magic?  
It was the year 1536, the year when Henry VIII beheaded his second wife, when he finally returned to the place where he said his final goodbyes to Arthur. It was also during this year, when he finally realized what a fool he had been. The last 500 years had left their mark even on his seemingly eternal human form. But in all those years he had done nothing to even look for a new purpose or even an explanation of his original one. It was almost too much to bear, when he realized that he had neglected his duties, that he had stopped serving his king while wallowing in his own loneliness and self-pity. By the time Henry’s fifth wife had been killed, Merlin had travelled the known world and had started to collect information on prophecies, that were as old as life itself and magic, that had survived, even though man had stopped believing in it. During the reign of Henry’s second daughter, he first heard Arthur’s name again. It was nothing but a whisper in the air, talk about something that was yet to come and still, it threw him so hard he almost couldn’t breathe.

Tragedy came and went by; the people of Arthur’s kingdom suffered but always made it through. Merlin couldn’t help but ask himself whether there had ever been a point to it. Everyone just appeared and disappeared and all grief went by and was forgotten by those who had sworn to never stop feeling it. Only Merlin, loyal, faithful Merlin was left to always remember the days, when he had fought for the one thing he had ever cared about and failed while still winning. It was enough to drive a lesser man crazy and he knew that only an idiot would do as he had done. But it was this or death and he couldn’t leave Arthur’s side again, not as long as there was still hope left, not as long as he could still remember the way Arthur used to smile at him to make sure that Merlin knew that he was only teasing him.

Merlin remembered it all, every second of this blip in time he had got to spent with his king and this was his tragedy but also his only hope. Once again the years flew by and kings made place for the people, who were now free to make their own right and wrong decisions. Men started to replace magic with electricity and what had started out as legends about a king and his magical aid started to fill whole libraries. Arthur would have loved the stories where Merlin was an old man who had brought Arthur up. He chuckled when he thought about how the man would have teased him about that fact as the stray tears in his eyes burned with the realization of how much he missed him. When would the wait be over and how could he ever be sure that it actually was a wait and not just a wish that he had fed himself by reading things into those old prophecies, that didn’t exist?

He saw his own, almost forgotten smile in a mirror when the skin around his eyes crinkled just that little bit less than it used to, when he realized that something was very, very right.


End file.
